Love Struck
by Furrtwo
Summary: It's Valentine's Day, and everyone's favorite/least favorite pink hedgehog is hosting a small get-together. Harmless. Nothing could go wrong. At least, that's what everyone thought...
1. Part One

**AN: In case you haven't noticed, this is kind of late. Yeah, I know. I do what I want. But you see, this story was originally planned to be a One-Shot, and even now I'm sort of half-agreeing with myself. But my sister, Mudeve (Who also co-wrote this story with me, and is very awesome 3) convinced me to put it up in chapters, mainly because of it's extreme length. When I say extreme, I'm not kidding. It's still not completely finished and I'm at almost 25 PAGES. Which, in case you care, is 13,112 words. Yeeeaah. So, I decided to part it at intervals and publish this story in chapters. I already have the next several chapters ready and hopefully by the time I've gotten to the "chapter" at which I'm still writing now I'd have finished it. Yes, it's confusing, but the basic point is this story was supposed to be a one-shot, but it was too long, and just wait for the rest.  
Wow, that's long. Okay. So, anyway, pwease R&R, won't you? I'm rather proud of this story, so let's get to it....**

**_--_**_Sonic and all related characters are copyrighted to Sega/Sonic team. I do not own nor pretend to own them, any more then Sonic owns any clothes other than shoes and gloves. _

**Love Struck**

by Furrtwo & Mudeve

_Chapter 1_

A large portion of the holiday Valentine's Day consists of the giving of gifts, almost like a miniature Christmas, be it chocolates or roses or a little stuffed bear holding a sign that says "I Heart You" or even a lawnmower. Then we have the products guaranteed to create love, or at least infatuation – amulets, necklaces, you name it. Naturally most of these objects are faulty, or at least meant for a joke, and you'd be best off getting a romantic lawnmower to give to your Valentine.

However, what if we assume not _all _these objects are frauds? What if, say, those Cupid's arrows you saw a ways back really _can_ produce love? Because if you get your paws – or the bee equivalent of paws, as you will soon see – on something like that, you can guarantee yourself something interesting that might change the way you look at a holiday. Much more fun to shoot love arrows at people than to receive cheap cards and expired candy.

They say holidays can bring out the best and worst in people, and Valentine's Day is no exception. The concept of devoting one day entirely to love and amorousness is not a foreign idea, and has found its way into Mobian culture, where it has as many mixed feelings as Earth's holiday....

"Isn't Valentine's Day just your favorite holiday?" Amy said happily. She was hosting a small Valentine's get-together, as grand as a party, though she insisted on simply calling it a "get-together".

"Not exactly," Blaze said, nearly popping one of the balloons she was supposed to be inflating with helium as she accidentally jabbed it with one of her claws. Amy had managed to convince her to come to her "get-together" with a conversation that went something like this:

Amy: Hey Blaze! Do you want to come to my Valentine's Day Get-Together?  
Blaze: (sarcastically) "Get-together?"  
Amy: Yeah! It's gonna be like a party!  
Blaze: No thanks.  
Amy: (Gets out Piko Piko Hammer) And why not?  
Blaze: I've got things to do. Saving my world, protecting the Sol Emeralds, defeating Eggman Nega for the umpteenth time. I don't have time for a party.  
Amy: First off, it's a _get-together, _not a party. Secondly, it'll be lots of fun! There'll be food, and games, and maybe Silver will be there!  
Blaze: Excuse me?  
Amy: I said, it's a _get-together, _not a party.  
Blaze: No, after... ugh. Never mind.  
Amy: So, like, you're going! Yay!  
Blaze: I just said-  
Amy: (Raises hammer threateningly) What was that?  
Blaze: Nothing. (sighs) Fine, I'll go to your stupid party.  
Amy: It's a GET-TOGETHER!

So that was why – instead of doing something with her time that she would have preferred – Blaze was at Amy's get-together, slightly put-off and occasionally muttering about alternate dimensions and glowing emeralds. "I can think of several other holidays I find more enjoyable than Valentine's Day," said Blaze. "For instance, Don't-Let-Pink-Hedgehogs-Pressure-You-Into-Doing-Something-You-Don't-Want-To-Do Day, and-"

"What about you, Cream?" Amy said, cutting Blaze off, to which the cat responded with a menacing glower.

Cream was hanging pink and white streamers over the interior of Amy's house, with the help of Cheese, of course. "I think it's a wonderful holiday, Miss Amy!" the young rabbit said. "And I'm sure Blaze thinks so too!"

"Chao, chao!" Cheese chirped in agreement, and the lavender cat had no choice but to sigh wearily, because if she couldn't bluntly refuse Amy, she certainly couldn't refuse Cream.

"From what I've heard it certainly sounds lovely," Tikal piped up. She was baking cookies and was now in the process of icing them with pink, white, and red hearts. She was taking a vacation from her Master Emerald dwelling to participate in what she called "strange new customs". She hadn't much experience with Valentine's Day but was looking forward to it.

"Miss Amy," Cream asked, "when are Mister Sonic, Mister Knuckles, and Tails going to get here?"

"Soon," Amy said, gazing longingly into space, making it quite clear that "soon" was not soon enough when waiting for a particular blue hedgehog.

"Who else is coming?" asked Tikal.

"Silver," Amy counted off on her fingers, "and Jet and Wave and Storm, and Big, and Rouge, and Shadow."

Blaze perked her ears in interest. "Shadow? He's coming?" She was curious, as the black hedgehog she had met briefly on her travels didn't seem like the type to come to a Valentine's Day party... er, get-together.

"Yeah, Shadow," said Amy. "I think Rouge pressured him into going or something." She smirked slightly. "Why? Do you like Shadow?"

"Um-ah-uh, um, of course not!" Blaze sputtered as Cream and Cheese giggled.

"Whatever...." Amy said mysteriously. "Oh yeah, I think Team Chaotix is coming. That just leaves the five of us here...." She trailed off and looked into the corner of the room, where the fifth person sat, pasting pom-poms onto pieces of construction paper.

"How's it going there, Marine?" Amy asked weakly.

"It's awright, mate!" she said. "Crikey! 'dese pom-poms are a beaut! Where d'ya get pom-poms like 'dis, mate?"

Amy looked confused and didn't answer Marine's odd question. Indeed, the Australian-accented raccoon had come all the way from Southern Island, simply to come to Amy's get-together... in a rowboat. No one exactly understood her intentions.

Their thoughts were shattered by the strident ring of the doorbell.

Amy jumped up and bolted to the door. "Sonic! Sonic! Sonic!"

But it wasn't Sonic.

Amy seemed a little disheartened to open the door and find Rouge and Shadow, the latter of whom was looking slightly irritated and uncomfortable.

"Hey," said the white bat, gliding past Amy and into the living room. "Are we late?"

"Um... no, you're the first ones here, actually." Amy paused. "Everyone else just got here earlier to help put stuff together."

Shadow walked in without a word and scowled at the flashy pink decorations.

Rouge's bat wings silently beat the air as she flew up to examine the streamers Cream and Cheese had put up. "Mmm hmm. A bit too loose. Of course, with the kind of help you have to put up with...." She trailed off and looked at Cheese, who was glaring at her indignantly.

Cream looked tearful. "What's wrong with them?"

"Oh, nothing," Rouge said, alarmed. "They're... fine."

And she flew off to investigate Tikal's cooking.

Shadow walked over to a cabinet situated near a window and paused, examining the photographs on it. The clone felt a pang of longing for something he had never felt, something he had never known.... It'd been hard for Rouge to simply convince him to go; Shadow stubbornly backing up that he was very busy, though in fact, with no news from Eggman and the Chaos Emeralds safe, his life was nothing more than lonely repetition.

"How are the cookies coming along?" Amy asked Tikal, coming into the kitchen.

"They're coming along fine," said Tikal, glaring at Rouge, who was criticizing her frosting.

"Good," said Amy. "Son- I mean, the rest of the guests, should be arriving shortly." She opened her refrigerator and pulled out a plate of chili dogs, which were obviously for Sonic. "Tikal, could you please put these out on the coffee table?"

"Of course," said Tikal, taking the plate and leaving the kitchen as Blaze entered, carrying the helium cylinder she had been using to inflate the balloons.

"Here," she said, looking a little disgruntled and thrusting the cylinder toward the pink hedgehog. "I'm finished with the balloons."

"Thanks," said Amy, but then she giggled. "Your voice sounds all squeaky from breathing in some of the helium you were using!"

"It does?" Blaze asked, surprised. Then she smiled a little. "It _does."_

"That's _so _cool!" Amy quickly took the helium container and inhaled some. "Haha! Oh, this is _awesome!"_ she said in a squeaky voice.

Amy and Blaze started laughing like maniacs, and it came out squeaky so they laughed even more, and it came out squeaky so they laughed even more, and it came out squeaky so they laughed even more. Rouge – who was still in the kitchen during all this – rolled her eyes at such immaturity and left the kitchen to attack the snacks Tikal had put out.

Just then Tikal came in. "What's with all the laughing?" she asked.

"Helium!" chorused the cat and the hedgehog, who by this time were feeling slightly dizzy from the combined effects of too much laughing and a light, nonflammable gaseous chemical element occurring naturally within other noble gases.

"What?" said Tikal quizzically.

"You know, helium," Amy said, obviously still high-pitched, as she began to walk into the living room.

"It makes your voice become high-pitched," Blaze explained matter-of-factly, and high-pitched as well, as she followed Amy.

"Ooh!" said Tikal, whose voice was not high-pitched yet, but she did follow Blaze who was following Amy into the living room. "That sounds fun!" She took the nearest balloon out of the air, untied it, and breathed in some helium. "How do I sound guys?" she squeaked.

Amy and Blaze started laughing again, but with Tikal laughing too this time.

"Can I try?" said Cream, who'd been watching them. She took a balloon as well, untied it, and took a gulp of helium.

Cream tried to talk, and at first it appeared that she had lost her voice entirely, but then Amy, Blaze, and Tikal realized that apparently, Cream's voice was so high-pitched before that now it was too high-pitched to hear.

"Cream, at first it appeared that you had lost your voice entirely, but than I realized that apparently, your voice was so high-pitched before that no it's too high-pitched to hear!" said Amy, whose voice, of course, was still filled with helium, and so since I am tired of saying that you will have to remember that Amy, Blaze, Tikal, Cream, and whoever else might inhale some will have squeaky and high-pitched voices until I state they do not.

"Your voice has become so high-pitched only bats can hear it!" said Blaze.

Cream looked slightly alarmed and tried to say something, but all that anyone heard was a faint whistling sound.

"She asked if it's permanent," said Rouge, who was raiding the pretzel sticks and could naturally hear Cream for obvious reasons.

"It's not permanent, Cream," assured Tikal. "It'll wear off after a little while."

Cream now looked relieved, and just then the doorbell rang, and there was a kerfuffle as everyone tried to get to it first.

Blaze - who had beaten everyone in Rock, Paper, Scissors – got to open the door, and was surprised to see it was....

"Silver!" Blaze said, and then blushed; because I do not need to remind you her voice was still high-pitched and squeaky.

"Hi, Blaze," Silver said, blushing as well. It had been a simple matter of time travel for the white hedgehog to come to their time, as he wouldn't pass an opportunity to visit his old friends.

"Yes… hi." Blaze suddenly wished - despite how friggin' _cool _it was – that her voice wasn't high-pitched. She was happy to see her best friend, of course, but she wished it could be more secluded and just the two of them, and without Rouge snickering and making amorous faces at them.

After several uncomfortable seconds, Blaze said, "Um… have you seen anyone else who's supposed to be coming?"

"What? ...Oh yeah!" Silver said. "I think Sonic and Knuckles and Tails are on their way. By the way, er... what's with-"

But Silver couldn't finish his sentence, because Amy gave a shrill cry of "Sonic?!" which sounded very strange because of the helium, and bolted to the door.

"Hi Silver!" mouthed Cream, who couldn't speak, in case you forgot.

Silver stepped inside. "As I was saying," he said, "what's with your voice?"

"Helium," Blaze said, nodding toward the balloons. "We sort of... inhaled some. You know how it makes your voice high-pitched?"

"Oh. So Cream had some?"

"Yes, apparently her voice was so high before, now we can't even hear it."

"Really?" said Silver. "I don't hear a difference."

Suddenly, Amy ran back into the room, dragging Sonic behind her, with Tails and Knuckles trailing after them.

"...and so, I made you these chili dogs, and I put up these decorations...." Amy was babbling on and on to poor Sonic, who was looking thoroughly exasperated. He pulled himself out of Amy's iron grip.

"Alright, alright! I get it! Just be glad I came to this par- get-together," he corrected himself, not wanting to incur Amy's wrath. He wondered briefly about the pitch of her voice, which was even higher than usual, questioned if he should ask her about it, decided against it. "Why don't you go turn on some music?" he asked, desperate to escape the dynamic pink hedgehog for just a minute.

"Whatever you say, Sonikku!" she squeaked, winking at the blue hedgehog before running off.

Sonic smiled to himself. Now, where are those chili dogs Amy was talking about...?

Meanwhile, Tikal had gone over to Knuckles.

"Hello, Knuckles the Guardian," she said.

"Hey, Tikal," the red echidna replied. "Uh, I'm just wondering, but what's with-"

"My voice?" she finished. "Helium. You should see Cream!" Tikal pulled Cream out of nowhere, and the bunny smiled and tried to say hello.

"Her voice was so high before that now we can't even hear it!" said Tikal.

"Really?" said Knuckles. "I don't hear a difference."

All of a sudden the doorbell rang, and everyone started arriving; it kept Amy busy. Soon, everyone was there – except Team Chaotix.

"I wonder why they haven't shown up yet?" Tails asked Sonic, who was busy scarfing down chili dogs.

Sonic shrugged. "No idea. I mean, of course they don't have the speed capabilities of yours truly-" Sonic gestured to himself proudly, "-and Vector has to drive them in... that car of his."

"That car," Tails said doubtfully. "I'm always telling Vector he should get it checked up by a mechanic or let me take a look at it, but he keeps insisting it was fine."

Sonic was about to answer, but was interrupted by a pounding on the door. Amy quickly scurried over to open it, and sighed with relief to see it was Team Chaotix.

"Come inside!" she said, her voice starting to fade back to normal a little. Vector and Espio stepped inside, while Charmy fluttered above them, his hands hidden behind his back.

"Sorry we're late," said Vector. "Dang car wouldn't start."

Espio sighed wearily. Vector's "car", as everyone knew, was a rusted old pickup truck that was originally blue but now the color of a burnt cookie. Its engine shorted out, and the gas pedal would malfunction, and the horn would sometimes suddenly go off, but – as Tails had said – Vector refused to get it looked at and insisted he drive the team everywhere in it.

"What's that you got, Charmy?" asked Amy curiously.

"Nothing!" Charmy yelled quickly. "Don't look at it!"

Amy looked questioningly at Charmy, but didn't pressure him any more.

Big mistake.


	2. Part Two

**AN: Thanks for the reviews, y'all. *ehem the two of you* Keep them coming!  
On a side note, I reviewed my own story. It's a lot of fun. You need to try it sometime =D  
Chapter Two. Enjoy.**

Love Struck

_Chapter 2_

The par- ehem, "get-together"- passed smoothly for a while, everyone mingling or attacking the snacks, or – in Shadow's case – staring vacantly into space and occasionally muttering, "Maria."

Sonic had finished eating as many chili dogs it was possible for him to eat, and was stretching out, ready to take an afternoon siesta, when Amy glomped him from behind.

"Ack! Amy, what is it?" he said, hoping his ribs wouldn't crack from the pressure.

Amy released him, but said firmly, "Come on. We're going on a walk."

"Wha- a walk?" Sonic looked at her curiously, with slight apprehension.

"Yes. A walk, silly. Not one of your runs, an actual _walk _for once." She moved closer and snuggled next to him, making him blush.

_Oh, what the heck,_ Sonic thought to himself. "Alright," he said, "a short walk."

Amy gave a squeal of happiness, and Sonic noticed all the helium gone from her voice, and – he _hated _himself for noticing this – just how much he really needed her, and that unique tone of hers.

Blaze was sitting near Sonic and Amy, dozing lazily in a sleepy catnap, but when she heard Amy mention a walk, she pricked up an ear and opened an eye. Hmm. _That _certainly would be interesting.

The lavender cat crept after the hedgehog pair, unaware she was being followed herself.

Charmy had been oddly quiet throughout the whole get-together, something he was most certainly not known for, and kept his hands behind his back the whole time. As Blaze left, he saw the opportunity as a perfect test run, and followed after her and Sonic and Amy, all the way outside.

The hedgehog couple walked in silence for a while, Blaze stealthily tailing them and Charmy stealthily tailing her. Finally, the pink hedgehog paused, and Blaze slunk behind a think, tangled hedge at the edge of the sidewalk, and Charmy dove out of sight behind her.

Blaze crept closer toward the hedgehogs, feline in every way. She wasn't the type to go out of her way to eavesdrop, but as the say, curiosity killed the cat.

Amy looked at the ground and shuffled her feet awkwardly, obviously having something to say but not sure how to say it. Sonic looked around, avoiding the pink hedgehog's gaze.

The cat skulked even closer, and the bee noticed something she didn't – a small twig, one of the twigs that bend up from the ground in the perfect position to crack loudly if stepped on. Charmy pulled out what he had behind his back – a large bow, made of sleek wood painted white. He drew a red arrow with a blunt heart at the end from a small quiver and positioned it on the bow. None other than love arrows – but did they work?

"Sonic...." Amy started to say quietly. Blaze edged closer to them and Charmy flew silently to the side and cocked an arrow. The twig was right next to her foot, and Charmy held his breath and took aim....

"Sonic, I think I-" Amy began, but was interrupted by a loud sharp _crack!_ The two hedgehogs spun around.

"Blaze?!" Sonic said incredulously, and a split second later fell to the ground, as an unnoticed love arrow silently struck his back.

"Wha- Sonic?" Amy said in bewilderment, helping him back to his feet and then proceeding to glare angrily at Blaze, who was standing frozen; heart thumping madly; tail bent straight and fluffed out. "Are you alright?" Amy asked Sonic. "You just fell like that!"

Sonic had a strange, distant expression on his face. "Of course I'm alright," he said dreamily. "I'm in... love."

"Sonic!" Amy squeaked happily, her voice sounding like it was full of helium again. "Do you really mean it?"

"Certainly," he said, and pulled himself out of Amy's grasp and knelt before the lavender cat that was just starting to regain herself. "I love you, Blaze."

It was so silent you could've heard a needle drop – only movement as Charmy, still unnoticed, pumped his fist in triumph, Blaze's tail puffed up again, and Amy's eyes filled with tears.

Finally, just to break the silence, Blaze said, "Are you... serious?"

"I've never been more serious in my life," said Sonic.

"...Really?" Blaze said worriedly after a small silence.

"Really."

At last, Amy couldn't take it anymore and burst into tears and ran off.

"Amy!" Blaze called, but then quickly decided that she'd deal with the pink hedgehog later. Now she just had to deal with....

She looked back down at Sonic and sighed wearily. Obviously there was _something _wrong with him. He'd never shown more than friendship to her before, and now....

Or maybe she was just being paranoid? She quickly shook the thought out of her head. No. She had to figure out if something was wrong with him - _what _was wrong with him.

Out of the corner of her eye she caught some movement, and turned to see Charmy quickly flying away. So _he _had something to do with this?

"Come on," she said to Sonic, following the bee. The blue hedgehog immediately got up and trailed after her, fawning like a dog toward its master.

Blaze pursued her quarry, Sonic still fervid with the opiate of love. She waited until she was directly behind the bee, and leapt forward, tackling the bee expertly out of the air and too the ground.

"H-hey!" yelped Charmy, unhurt but surprised as Blaze pinned him down. "What- get off me!"

"What did you do to Sonic?" Blaze said, not bothering to beat around the bush.

"Nothing!"

"Don't even _try _to play that card," Blaze snarled, subconsciously unsheathing her claws.

Charmy struggled, wishing he had claws as well, instead of a stinger that was really not of much use now. "I was just testing something, okay?! Hey!"

Blaze had pulled the bow out of Charmy's grip and stood up, examining it. She eyed the sling of arrows on Charmy's back and it dawned on her. "Are these- how did you-"

"Okay, okay, okay!" Charmy said, getting to his feet. "I shot Sonic, all right? But I just wanted to see if they would work, I swear, and I thought it would be funny, but really, I didn't know this would happen or it would be this strong! See, I got it a while back from this guy who said he got it as a birthday present from this guy who had never used it because he thought it didn't work and he got it from his mom who got it from her grandfather who had bought it at this antique shop who had bought it from a hedgehog who had found it-"

The bee shut up when he saw the look Blaze was giving him.

Blaze handed the bow back to Charmy and sighed and closed her eyes. "First things first, do you know how to reverse it?"

Charmy rocked backward and forward on his heels, looking like a little kid being interrogated by his parents. "Well..." he started, "not exactly."

Blaze growled. "What do you mean, 'not exactly?' "

"I mean, I _might _know," he said. "We might be able to by... pulling the arrow out, but I don't know."

"We can at least try it," Blaze said. "Sonic, come- where did he go?" she asked, looking around.

At that moment, Sonic ran up, arms laden with boxes of chocolates and bouquets of flowers. "I got all this for you!!" he said, yelling for no particular reason.

"Um, thank you," she said, blinking at how creepy Sonic was acting. "Just stand there for a second, please."

She walked behind him and gripped the shaft of the love arrow, which was embedded in his right back spike. She held his side for balance and gave it a sharp tug, and the arrow came out smoothly and easily, Sonic giving a small jump.

After a tense second, she asked him, "How do you feel?"

"Like I'm in a dream," he said, gazing at her longingly.

"It didn't work!" Charmy squeaked, positively terrified Blaze would start going off on him.

"What do we try now?" she asked, glancing at Sonic and flicking her tail.

"I-I dunno!"

Blaze sighed and looked off into the distance, and then something unusual happened. However, at this point in the story it is necessary to go back before we can go forward. You might've been wondering what happened to Amy – in fact, you should – so now I will describe to you what was happening to Amy back at the get-together until both these stories cross again.

Amy was back at the get-together, no longer crying, but still tearful. Tikal and Cream were near her, trying to comfort her.

"And... and... he told her that he loved her!" Amy finished, wiping her eyes, after telling Tikal and Cream exactly what had happened.

"That was very rude of Mister Sonic," said Cream. "He knows that you like him." Her voice was obviously audible because of the helium wearing off, and – as you probably figured out – everyone else's voices were not as high-pitched and if you haven't figured it out I recommend you to go to your neighborhood grocery store and buy a box of Common Sense.

"That's just the thing," said Tikal, who was slightly more suspicious. "Sonic's not _that _rude – he is a boy, after all – but he's not rude enough to reject you like that. Blaze doesn't seem like his type; their friends but nothing more. I think something fishy's going on."

"Yes, it is," sniffled Amy. "Sonic dumped me for a... a _cat!"_

"It's alright, Amy," said Tikal, putting her arm around the hedgehog. "We'll find out what's going on."

"We promise!" chirped Cream, and Cheese agreed, "Chao, chao!"

"Promise what?" asked Silver, coming over.

"Promise that we'll help Miss Amy find out what caused Mister Sonic to suddenly forget all about her and fall in love with Blaze," said Cream.

"_What!?"_ Silver yelped, so loudly that Jet scowled at him and turned up the volume on his iPod.

"Cream said," said Tikal impatiently, "that we promise we'll-"

"No!" Silver said angrily. "The other kind of 'what'! I heard what you said, but I didn't understand it."

"Who really understands love?" Tikal said dreamily.

Silver looked very distressed. He turned to Amy. "What did Sonic say, exactly?"

"Well," said Amy angrily, "he said he was in love, and I got really excited, and I asked him if he really meant it, and he said of course, and he got down on his knees and told Blaze – who was spying on our private conversation – that he loved her... and it broke my heart!"

"That jerk!" Silver fumed. "Come on Amy! Let's go find that punk so I can teach him a lesson!"

"Good!" said Amy, who started to walk to the door.

Tikal looked shocked. "Amy! You're just going to let Silver beat up Sonic?"

"Yes."

"Fine," Tikal said wearily. "But I'm coming with you."

"What about me?" said Cream.

"You stay here," said Tikal. "Make sure that Rouge doesn't wreck the place; Amy would be even more upset."

Cream saluted. "I will perform the appointed duty with utmost regard and confidence, Miss Tikal!"

Knuckles and Tails came over. "We were eavesdropping on you;" said Knuckles, "we want to see Sonic get beat up too!"

"That's not-" started Tikal, but Amy interrupted.

"Great! The more the merrier! Let's go!"

And so, Silver, Amy, Tikal, Knuckles, and Tails set out.

They didn't have long to walk, because Charmy was heading towards Amy's house when Blaze stopped him. The two hedgehogs, two echidnas, and fox had first spotted Blaze somewhere around the time she had pulled the arrow out of Sonic's back, and from a distance, Silver... got the wrong idea about what was going on, if you get my point. The white hedgehog charged forward, blinded by rage toward the blue hedgehog he had once called his friend, using his telekinesis to go even faster.

(At this point, we are now resuming at the point we went back, in case you couldn't tell.)

"Silver?" Blaze asked incredulously as Silver gave a ferocious yell and Sonic was psychokinetically lifted into the air. Sonic writhed in agony, fear in his emerald eyes, as Silver's outstretched hands curled into tight fists, anger blazing in his golden eyes.

"So this is it, huh?!" Silver yelled. "I spare your life, I become your partner, I help you save the future – and you do _this _to me?"

"Silver stop!" Blaze yelled, though inside – even though she wouldn't have admitted it for the world – she was secretly pleased Silver was standing up to her like that.

The hedgehog growled and flattened his ears, but pulled his hands back and Sonic fell the few feet back to the ground. Then he turned to Blaze, his eyes glinting like golden coins.

"Nothing's going on between me and... Sonic," she assured him, glancing at the blue hedgehog that had already got up and was fawning at her heels.

Silver glanced at the sycophantic hedgehog and back at Blaze. "Are you sure? The way Amy said it sounded like he was friggin' proposing-"

_"Proposing?!" _cried Blaze so loudly and angrily Silver jumped in fear and a small patch of grass caught fire at Blaze's feet.

"Proposing!" exclaimed Sonic, and he darted off before either the argent hedgehog or lavender cat could do anything.

"He wasn't... _proposing,"_ Blaze said, blushing slightly. "You see, there's-"

"What's going on?" asked Tikal as the rest of the group caught up.

Blaze sighed. "I suppose I should explain. Charmy-" Blaze suddenly stopped and looked around. "Where did he go?"

Amy looked quizzically at her. "Where did who go? Sonic? I just saw-"

"No, Charmy!" Blaze said. "Oh, god.... He has these arrows, I swear, they cause love. That's what happened to Sonic."

"Did you ask him how to reverse it?" Amy asked excitedly.

"No, it never occurred to me," Blaze said, rolling her eyes. "Of course I did."

"What did he say?!" Amy asked excitedly, again.

Blaze had a hard time keeping her temper. "Well, _Amy," _she said, "if I _had _found out the way to reverse it, do you _really _think Sonic would still be in love with me?!"

Tails giggled. "Hehe, owned!"

"So it was just arrows?" said Silver, happy Sonic wasn't in love with Blaze of his own accord, but also slightly crestfallen. "Darn. I was looking forward to beating up Sonic some more."

Tikal sighed to herself, unhappy her pacifist ways apparently were leaving no mark whatsoever on her friends.

Knuckles crossed his arms. "What, exactly, did that bee say?"

"Nothing much, I'm afraid," said Blaze. "All that I really know for sure is that simply removing the arrow will have no effect."

Sonic came back at that moment, panting from running so far and fast, and knelt next to Blaze and pulled out a ring. "Blaze, will you-"

"Not _now!" _she hissed to him, her white muzzle turning pink from embarrassment.

"Nowcan I beat him up?" Silver said hopefully.

"Sorry, but I think we'll most likely need him conscious in order to bring him back to his senses," Blaze said, giving Silver a rare smile.

No one noticed the arrow fly out of the bushes until it was embedded in Blaze's back and she had fallen to the ground.

"Blaze, my love!" Sonic yelled in alarm, rushing to help, but Silver pushed him out of the way.

"Are you okay? Here, let me help you up," he said, helping the cat to her feet.

As Blaze stood, Tails' eyes grew wide and he pointed to Blaze's back with a trembling finger. "A... a... l-love arrow!"

Knuckles bared his fangs and leapt into the bushes, knuckle-spikes tearing wildly at the shrubbery. The bee zoomed out of the bushes with an evil grin on his tiny bee face.

"You really think you can stop me Knuckles? Mwahahahaha!" he laughed evilly before flying off as fast as his little wings could.

"CATCH THAT BEE!!!" Knuckles ordered, leaping after him with Tails and Tikal following.

"That laugh wasn't realistic!" Silver yelled angrily after Charmy. Then he turned back to Blaze. She was looking at him with an expression he had never seen on her, an expression that could only be....

"Uh, well, we should at least get that arrow off you, even if it won't help us with anything," Silver said awkwardly, and in response Blaze nodded dreamily.

"I'll do it!" Sonic announced, yet he never did, as the next moment he was detained by a large hammer.

"It looks like _I_ got to beat him up, Silver," Amy said haughtily, drawing back her Piko Piko Hammer over her shoulder.

Silver nodded and walked behind Blaze. He grabbed the arrows shaft and yanked it. The arrow slid out more easily than he'd expected, and he held the arrow in his hands, shivering at the damage whatever opiate on the arrowhead could cause.

Blaze rubbed up against him, purring. Silver's initial reaction was shock at the behavior Blaze scorned, but reminded himself to remember this wasn't Blaze, not exactly – she was only acting this way because she was under the influence of the love arrows.

"What should we do now?" asked Amy quietly.

Silver sighed, and felt as if a giant weight was being pressed upon him. "We should watch after these two; make sure they don't try anything... you know. Now that Blaze has... gotten...." Silver couldn't bear to finish his statement. Blaze had been an unofficial leader when Sonic had gotten shot, and now that she was too, someone would have to take her place, become the new general.

_Like a war, _he thought grimly to himself. They had suffered casualties, and lost warriors. And he wasn't sure if he could save them....

**So! Didja love it? Hate it? In-between it? Anyway, REVIEW PLEASE! I love all your comments! Even the criticizing ones! Except not as much, although I haven't gotten many of those. I rather like this one.... Though it went by faaast.... Gotta go type now....**


	3. Part Three

**Chappie Numero Tres up. Have fun, and REVIEW.**

Love Struck

_Chapter 3_

Knuckles, Tails, and Tikal were searching for Charmy on a trail that had run cold.

"Where did he go?!" Knuckles yelled angrily. "He was right! Here! How could he have gotten away?!"

"I don't know!" Tails squeaked, frightened. He knew better than to get on Knuckles' bad side when he was in a rage like this, but in truth, he had no idea how Charmy could have gotten away so suddenly.

"Well where do you think he went?!"

"I don't know!" Tails squeaked again. He cowered behind his two namesakes, wrapping them in front of him and clinging to them.

"Knuckles, calm down!" said Tikal. "Charmy probably went back to Amy's house to shoot more people."

"Right!" yelled Knuckles, calming immediately. "We go to Amy's house!" He grinned to himself. "This is cool! I get to play the hero now that the blue hedgehog's out of the way! Okay, since this is sort of a war, I get to be the general! Tikal, you can be my deputy."

"What about me?" said the yellow fox.

"You're gonna be my servant, unless you start getting good ideas like Tikal," said Knuckles. "Okay, here's the plan: we're going to burst into Amy's house and cause a lot of commotion. Then, we're going to capture anyone who's gotten shot, and any of Charmy's accomplices, and Charmy himself! We'll give no mercy!"

"What!?" said Tikal. "We're going to capture people!?"

"Yup." Knuckles chuckled to himself and cracked his knuckles. "All's fair in love and war, and this is both."

Tails timidly raised his hand. "I have a question. What if Charmy's not there?"

"DO YOU REALLY WANT TO BE A SERVANT, FOX, 'CAUSE YOU'RE HEADED IN THAT DIRECTION!!!" yelled Knuckles.

"N-no!" Tails whimpered, hiding behind his tails and muttering, "Sonic was a much leader than you...."

"Sonic's not here right now!" fumed Knuckles. "You are all so impossible! Except for Tikal! So I guess only you're being impossible. Anyway, we're wasting precious time! We have to go capture Charmy!" He pulled a net out of nowhere and stomped off in the direction he thought Amy's house was.

Tails gulped. "Kn-Knuckles?" he said, hardly daring to speak. "A-Amy's h-house is th-that way."

Knuckles immediately stopped and turned around. "I knew that."

As he passed Tails he patted him on the head. "Keep this up, and you could be a sergeant, Tails!"

Soon they arrived at Amy's house. "Everyone got the plan down?" Knuckles said. Tails and Tikal nodded. "Good. Okay, when I give the signal, we charge inside!"

"What's the signal?" asked Tails.

"Hmm," said Knuckles. "That's a good question. I don't know, maybe... no... how about...." He thought for a couple seconds. "Aha! I know! When I shout 'go', we go in!"

"That's genius," said Tails, who wanted to be a sergeant so he decided to stay on Knuckles' good side.

"Ready... GO!!" yelled Knuckles, and they charged into the house.

Outside, Charmy flew down from his hiding place without a sound, chuckling evilly. "Mwee hee, I'm the genius here!" he said to himself. It was obvious they'd go _inside _the house to look for him – why not stay on the outside?

He flew over to the partially opened living room window. Perfect. He cocked an arrow and positioned himself, watching the chaos unfolding inside. Who should his next victim be...? Oh, this was so much fun!

Charmy finally decided on his target with a smug grin on his face. He pulled back on the bowstring and released, and the arrow flew through the air....

Inside the house, chaos was unfolding – as Charmy had so rightly thought – with Knuckles brandishing a net and running around yelling like a maniac, and everyone staring at him like he _was _a maniac.

"Charmy!! Where's Charmy?!" he yelled, fiery determination in his purple eyes.

"Charmy?" said Vector. "He left a while back. Are you okay?"

"He has love arrows!" yelled Knuckles. "Love arrows, I say! And he's shooting people with them!"

Espio looked at Knuckles like he had just said aliens were attacking. "The echidna is delusional. I have never heard anything more nonsensical."

Jet was getting rather irritated with the noise, and turned up the volume on his iPod even higher.

"Have you seen Charmy?" Tails asked Big, who shook his head. The fox was interrogating everyone for any traces of the manic bee, with so far no leads.

"Hey, Marine?" he asked, walking over to the raccoon who was still doing her strange arts and crafts. She glared at him angrily and threw a pom-pom at him, causing him to fall down.

"Mind yourself, mate, interruptin' an artist durin' 'er work!"

"Sorry," Tails muttered, getting up and going over to Rouge. "Hey, um... Rouge? Have you seen Charmy?"

"Charmy? No."

"Oh," Tails said, disappointed. "We've been looking for him because he has these love arrows and he's shooting people with them."

"Love arrows?" the bat said, her large ears perked in interest. Mmm, love arrows, how _fascinating. _If they worked, that is, they would certainly be of use to her.... No doubt fetch a good price, too....

"Love arrows," Tails said bitterly. "We don't know how to reverse them, and if we don't find out, the effects could be permanent."

Rouge was about to answer, but her sensitive bat ears heard a nearly silent _whoosh_ of air as an arrow arced its way through space at a speed to match our favorite blue hedgehog. She didn't even have time to turn around, as the arrow struck her back and she fell, like the others before her.

"Rouge...?" asked Tails hesitantly, and then he saw the _love arrow._ "Oh no," he muttered in horror. "Oh _no!"_

His heart pounding like a drum, he ran to Knuckles.... Rouge.... Why _Rouge...._

"Knuckles! Knuckles!" Tails panted, grabbing onto the sleeve of Knuckles' jacket to get his attention. "Rouge! It's Rouge! She- she got hit by a love arrow; quickly Knuckles!" And once again, why _Rouge?! _Tails was terrified; she would catch up to him soon, and he didn't even want to _know _what she would do to him.

"A love arrow?!" Knuckles yelped. "Charmy! That imbecile! God, where is he?!"

Tails had completely forgotten Charmy with the terrifying event of Rouge being physically attracted to him. He did the quick calculation; if he was right there, and Rouge there, and she got hit in the back.... His eyes trailed in the direction of the arrow's path and he almost gasped aloud, flooded with new panic. "That window!"

With an almighty echidna-roar, Knuckles barreled to the window, smashing aside anything and anyone in his way. Tails tried to run after him, but felt something grab his twin tails to prevent his progress.

"Hey, there, cutie...." said an amatory voice that made his blood run cold.

"Agghh! No! Rouge- ack! Get off me!" Tails yelled, the most frightened fox in the world as Rouge pulled him closer to her.

Rouge made a scolding sound. "Are you really going to act like that? Or is this... too much heat for you?"

"Please let go of me!" Tails yelled, trying to squirm out of a position nothing less than erotic. "Knuckles! Help!!" He prayed the echidna would be sapient enough to listen to him, for once, just this time.

"Calling for help?" Rouge purred, wrapping his tails around her voluptuously. "No one can help you now.... You're under my complete mercy...."

Tails was utterly terrified by Rouge's concupiscence, even more than he had been before. Too terrified, even, to try and call for any more help from Knuckles. Why Rouge, why _him?! _Of all the other females, why Rouge, who was ten years older than him and whose lust would traumatize him for life?! He almost collapsed out of sheer terror, but then heard a voice, a voice he clung to like a small raft in a raging ocean storm.

"Ms. Rouge?" the voice asked, and Tails had never been so relieved to hear Cream's high-pitched voice. "What are you doing with Tails?"

"Ah... nothing," said the bat, releasing Tails, because apparently, Rouge had enough sense while being under the influence of one of the strongest opiates ever to not let Cream see too much. She gave Tails a coy wink and flew off, possibly to wait until the young coney was gone.

"Th-th-thanks, Cream," stuttered Tails, so shaken up by his encounter with the white bat he could hardly get the words out.

She gave him a warm smile. "It's no problem! You looked like you were struggling with her. I was just trying to help you out. Now, don't you have to go catch up with Knuckles?"

"What? Oh yeah!" The fox gave Cream a shy smile. "Thanks... again."

She bowed her head, beaming with happiness. "You're welcome!" She raised her head and looked around. "Now, where did Cheese go...?"

"I'll tell you if I find him!" Tails called, darting off and weaving through the crowd of people, dearly, dearly hoping _that bat _wasn't following him.

It wasn't long for Tails to find Knuckles. "Did you find Charmy?" he asked.

"No," growled the red echidna. "That stupid bee is as elusive as that blue spikeball."

"Well, in that case," started Tails, "you could've come help me from that horrible white bat that was harassing me-"

"Agh! Oh yeah! Rouge is shot too!" Knuckles slammed his fist into the coffee table in anger. "And with that bee playing sniper at the window, who knows who _else _he could've shot?!"

"Have you found Charmy yet?" asked Tikal, approaching Knuckles after searching for any clues.

Knuckles looked too irritated to answer, so Tails said, "We sorta found him.... He was close by, but he got away."

"Did he shoot anyone?" Tikal said with a gasp.

"Yeah, Rouge, but we're not sure if there's anyone else."

"Rouge?" asked Tikal. "I'm sorry for whoever was with her when she got shot."

Tails gave the echidna a strange look, and Tikal knew immediately what he meant. "Ohh. I'm sorry for y-"

She got interrupted as the very air flickered beside her and Espio appeared so suddenly it made her jump. "I have come for you, my love," he said in a dreamy voice, and Knuckles performed the mother-of-all facepalms.

"Agghh! That damn bee even shot one of his own coworkers!" Knuckles yelled, kicking a chair. "God! Now we have _another _freakin' person shot!" In his anger, he tore the arrow out of one of Espio's back spikes and snapped it in half like a pencil. They were all momentarily distracted, even the chameleon, by the sight of tiny hearts floating skyward from where the arrow broke.

Tikal looked at the hearts curiously. "Isn't that odd."

"Hey, what do you think is in those arrows that causes love anyhow?" Tails wondered aloud.

"I don't care!!" yelled Knuckles. "I just want to know how to stop it!"

"You cannot stop love," Espio said suddenly. "It is like the sunrise, or the winter, or destiny, perhaps; impossible to delay or prevent, something you can only sit back and watch unfold before your eyes."

General staring from everyone present, unsure of where the profound-ness had come from.

"Knuckles," Vector addressed the echidna as he strode over to them. "Gotta talk to you, man. First Charmy goes missing, now Espio's gone all strange. What's up?"

"Well," said Tikal, "Charmy has these Cupid love arrows and he's gone maniacally insane with power over them, and so he's shooting random people to get them together, but we're trying to stop him, but it's been difficult so far because he's tricky to catch up to and knows how to hide and escape, yet he's managed to shoot several people along the way, including Sonic with Blaze, Blaze with Silver, Rouge with Tails, and Espio with me, and we're going to see if there's any way we can stop him before it's too late, and we also need to cure the shot people, and we need to confiscate those arrows."

"That makes sense," said Vector.

"Wanna help us?" said Tails. "We're considering it a war. Knuckles is the general and Tikal's the deputy, and if I'm good I might be able to be a sergeant."

"I'll help," said Vector, "on one condition."

"Anything," said Knuckles. _Well, we do need all the help we can get to catch this bug, _he thought. _And he'd be useful; he understands Charmy's motives._

Vector gave him a big, toothy, crocodilian smile. "_I _get to be the general."

"_WHAT?!" _yelled Knuckles. "Ack- you- no!"

"Knuckles we really need him to help us!" begged Tails.

Knuckles glared at him, and Tikal – for Tails' benefit – added, "You want to capture Charmy, don't you?"

The red echidna sighed and then glanced at Vector. _"Fine. _You can be the... the..." he swallowed, "...general."

"Awesome," said Vector, and Knuckles glowered at him. "Let's go catch that bee. But what do we do with Espio?"

They looked at the chameleon, who was staring lovingly at Tikal. He appeared to be more reserved and self-contained than the other love arrow victims, but he was still under the love arrow's influence and could cause problems for the others.

"Hey, I could watch him!" said Cream, who had thought she might be needed and was listening in on the conversation. "He'll be safe here with me while you guys find Charmy!"

Knuckles looked doubtful. "Well... okay. Just keep an eye on him, alright?"

She nodded in agreement and took the chameleon's hand. "Come on Espio. We'll make sure Charmy doesn't show up here."

"Charmy?" he said vaguely. "What about Tikal?"

"She... um... has some things she needs to do. You have to stay here, with me."

The magenta chameleon nodded vacantly and followed Cream.

"So, guys!" Vector was obviously excited. "Where do we look first?"

"Aren't _you _the general now?" grumbled Knuckles.

"Then I vote I let my deputy decide! Where to, Tikal?"

The tan echidna closed her eyes in thought and then opened them. "Silver, Amy, Sonic, and Blaze! He might've gone to them!"

"Okay! So we head to Silver, Amy, Sonic, and Blaze!" said Vector.

They headed outside and saw Marine squeezing Cheese tightly. The chao was making choking sounds and frantically trying to escape his raccoon tormentor.

"Oy there, Cheese! Don't try to 'scape, mate!" Marine yelled, fondling the chao.

"Chao! Chao chao chao chao chao!" he yelped, looking desperately at Tikal.

"He said, help! Something came over Marine and now she's madly in love with me!" said Tikal.

Knuckles closed his eyes and growled. "Charmy."

"We're on the right track," said Vector.

Cheese emitted a high-pitched squeal; Marine was curling up with him and he was getting squashed. "Chao chao! Chao chao chao chao!"

"We'll help you as best as we can," assured Tikal. "Hey... um... Marine?" she asked her.

Marine was stroking the chao's small, pink, miniscule-feathered wings. "What is it, mate?"

Tikal had no idea what to say to get the odd raccoon to release Cheese. "Um, could you please let go of Cheese?" she said, brilliantly.

Marine gave Tikal an annoyed look. "What do you think, mate?"

Tikal looked at Knuckles and shrugged helplessly.

"At least Charmy has a sense of humor," Vector said dubiously. "Marine and a chao. Uh-huh. And, heh heh, Rouge and Tails." He chuckled to himself. "Maybe Cheese can give you some tips, Tails."

Even Knuckles snickered. Tails looked at him tearfully. "Rouge and I together isn't funny."

"I was... laughing at Marine and Cheese," the echidna said, trying to keep a straight face. "By the way, I'm just wondering: if your kid inherits your two tails, will it fly using them... or its bat wings?"

Vector roared with laughter, and Tails lowered his ears embarrassedly. "How will you get on a sleeping schedule, Tails, what with her being nocturnal and all?" the crocodile said, giving the fox a spiteful grin.

"You should give her a Chaos Emerald as a present!" said Knuckles.

"She'd probably ask you to marry her!"

The echidna and crocodile laughed maliciously and the fox looked like he wanted to shrink into his tails.

"Guys, we really should get going," he said quietly, but only Tikal, standing next to him, heard him through Vector and Knuckles' laughing.

Tikal could see tears beginning to fill the fox's eyes, and she stood forward to defend him.

"Stop laughing at Tails!" she said fiercely. "It's not his fault at all Rouge likes him now; it's all Charmy's, and we should be working on finding him instead poking fun at Tails! If it had been one of you two, we wouldn't be laughing at you!"

Tails gave Tikal a look of gratitude, and Vector and Knuckles stopped laughing. "Look... if Rouge was in love with me, _I'd _be making the most of it," Vector said, but he and Knuckles exchanged sheepish glances.

"Yeah... uh, let's get going, then," said Knuckles, his muzzle turning as red as his quills.

"Chao?" Cheese asked Cream nervously.

"Don't worry, Cheese," said Tikal. "Just hang on for a little while. We're going to find Charmy and get him to find out how to reverse this. Then we'll help you."

Cheese looked relieved. "Chao ch-" he said, getting cut off as Marine squeezed him and snuggled him.

"Should we tell Cream where Cheese is?" Tails asked Tikal.

"As soon as we help him," Tikal said. She gave the rest of the group a small nod, and the headed off, hoping they could get to Amy and Silver before Charmy did.

"Hey," Knuckles said, breaking the silence, "do you think those love arrows can be used after they've already hit someone?"

Tails thought for a moment. "Yeah. It's not like whatever's on them goes away. Why do you ask?"

"I was... just wondering," muttered Knuckles, and the rest of their short walk was in silence until they saw the distant sight of the rest of their small troop.

"Thank goodness you're here," said Silver, approaching them. The afternoon was wearing on, and in the glowing eaves as the sun began its occidental decent, his snowy fur looked eerie, half bathed in light and half shrouded in darkness.

"Has Charmy come?" asked Knuckles immediately.

Silver gave him a grim smile. "Yes. He tried to shoot me." He held out his arm and Tikal gasped aloud at the short, jagged cut running up his forearm. "When I psychokinetically deflected the arrow, he became a bit... hostile, shall we say. He tried to sting me." He shook his arm and the sleeve of his shirt fell over the cut blocking it from view. "I take it you haven't seen much of him either?"

"Sadly," said Tikal, still staring with horror at his arm. "We haven't seen him at all but he's shot Rouge and Espio and Marine. We headed here looking for him."

"I'm afraid he's not here anymore," said Silver, "and we haven't figured out how to cure... these two yet either." He gestured sadly to Blaze and Sonic.

"I hope it doesn't end up being permanent," said Tails miserably.

"Permanent?" Sonic said. He looked as though the word had caused him to suddenly remember something. He closed his eyes pensively, thinking hard, and finally recited,

_"__The sin of love_

_"The worst of crimes,_

_"Be careful of_

_"Receding time;_

_"Past midnight_

_"Your time no more_

_"The sin of love_

_"Forever more."_

Everyone stared at Sonic oddly. "Where did _that _come from?" asked Vector.

Sonic looked just as confused as everyone else. "I... don't know."

"Do you have any idea what it means, Tails?" asked Knuckles. The young fox slowly shook his head.

Amy gazed off into the distance, mulling over the short verse.

"_Past midnight, your time no more...."_ she whispered, and she knew, suddenly, what it meant, the awful realization; not wanting to believe it, but knowing she must.

"We have until midnight," she said quietly, yet everyone heard her. "That's what it means. After midnight, Sonic and the others... they'll stay that way... f-for...." She couldn't bring herself to say the rest, and tears silently sprung to her jade eyes.

"L-look," Knuckles said, though there was an edge to his voice, "just because Sonic said this random poem he's never even heard before doesn't mean...."

He faltered at the look Amy was giving him. "Yes, it does," she whispered. "He knows. We have to find a way to save them. Or...."

"Else." Amy turned and was surprised to see it was the crimson echidna that had finished her sentence. She felt a heart wrenching tug of sadness in her chest. Sonic, forever madly in love with someone else, while she stood on the sidelines; hoping for the day when emerald eyes would meet jade, hoping for the day that would never come.

"We have to go back to my house," Amy said finally. "If we're all there, Charmy will come eventually."

Without another word she stood from where she was kneeling on the ground, took Blaze's hand in hers, and walked away, gently leading the lavender cat who willingly followed. Exchanging glances, the others followed suit, and then turned to follow their new unofficial leader, wherever she may decide to go.


	4. Part Four

Love Struck

_Chapter 4_

"Let's go out front and see if we can see Miss Tikal coming," Cream said, leading Espio through Amy's house. They had been scouting throughout it, looking for any sign of Charmy and were forced to conclude he was no longer there. Cream hoped that by taking Espio to the front of the house, she could not only keep an eye on him and look out for Tikal – and the rest of the group – but also post a lookout on the whereabouts of Charmy. "They should be coming soon, and...."

Cream trailed off, distracted by a large, hardcover book on a shelf. She walked over to it and picked it up, feeling its heavy weight in her hands. Someway, somehow, this book had caught her attention; not coincidental, something more.

She examined the book's title; still being relatively young, she could just make out, after a little thought, its rather wordy title: _How to Deal with Love and Affection in Every Which, Way, and Form._

That got the rabbit's attention; it was only obvious Amy had a book like this in her house – Cream wouldn't be surprised if she had two other copies – but the way it seemed to be calling out to her sensitive ears seemed like it would hold answers – it sounds silly, of course, to say that a book was calling for her, but it's simply a feeling that you recognize when you feel it and hard to imagine if you're not. Almost like an aura, Cream suddenly knew: this was it. This book held answers.

Cream looked over her shoulder to check on Espio, who was gazing vacantly into space, and flipped open the book to a random page. She almost dropped the book when she saw, sprawling over most of the right-hand page, a large complicated diagram of what could only be a love arrow. She quickly made out the heading on the opposite page, "Chapter 6 – Objects Designed to Create Affection," but the rest of the page might as well been written in Greek. She couldn't focus on any of the words long enough to sound it out.

Obviously she needed someone to help her – but who? She scanned the room; Espio _could _help but was in no fit state to; Jet, Wave, and Storm were definitely out of the question; Big meant well but would stumble on the more difficult words; Rouge was – ominously – nowhere in sight, and all that was left was....

Cream looked at Shadow and sighed. It wasn't likely at all he'd help her, but what choice did she have? She needed to find out how to cure everyone – she needed to play her part as well. Everyone would look at Knuckles and Tails and the rest of them and remember that _they _were the warriors in this little war of theirs. At least if she could figure this out, they'd look back on it and agree that Cream had helped – it was a small thing, but it helped.

That stiffened her resolve, and took one last look at Espio and hoped he wouldn't run off, and walked tentatively over to where Shadow stood, staring into space as vacantly as the chameleon she had just left.

"...Shadow?" she asked timidly. He slowly turned his gaze to her and fixed his brilliant red eyes on her soft, gentle brown ones. She felt like quaking in fear, but knew, this _had _to work.

When Shadow said nothing, she said, concentrating on not letting her voice quaver, "I have... a favor I would like to ask of you."

The stare the black hedgehog was giving her was so apathetic, so indifferent, it would have made stronger people quell in fear, but Cream, once again, steeled her resolve.

"Name the favor you have in mind," he said finally.

Cream closed her eyes and thought for a second. She had to make this sound convincing. Opening her eyes, she said, "I... I need to ask you about... love."

The hedgehog remained as impassive as ever. "Love?"

"Yes. You see, Charmy... he has these love arrows, and when shot with them, they really do create love. He's shot several people already, and we need a way to undo it, or they could be that way permanently. I... _think _I found something that might help in this book, but I can't read it. Could... could... could you p-please read me what it s-says?"

Cream didn't really think she sounded entirely convincing, and half-expected Shadow to burst out in cruel laughter. So she was surprised when he said, "Very well. Let me see the book."

She handed him the large book. He held it and examined the diagram slowly and carefully. He then proceeded to read the rest of the page, looking for any useful information.

"How interesting," he said suddenly, around a minute later.

"What does it say?" asked Cream, who was waiting patiently.

His scarlet eyes glanced at her and turned back to the book. He began to read, slowly, carefully, each word sending a chill of fear and excitement down Cream's spine.

"Anyone who has ever experienced it knows, without question, there is no stronger force in the universe that love, why so many have sought to put a stopper on this peculiar force. Yet there is no stronger sense of crushing grief than heartbreak, its immense sorrow enveloping every particle of being. Truly, the distinctive feeling of heartbreak can crush even the strongest barriers and walls."

Heartbreak. That was it. So _simple, _yet so effective. All they would have to do, use heartbreak to crush the cloud of love palling the rest of their minds. Strong enough to snap them back to their senses.

Shadow turned his gaze to her once again. He closed the book and handed it to her. "Did you find what you were looking for?"

"Yes, I... did," she said breathlessly. "Th-thank you, Shadow."

Cream thought he would simply give a curt nod and stalk off, and so was even more surprised when he said, "You are most welcome. Even as an immortal ultimate life form I can possess the quality of sympathy. I am not as heartless as could think."

She stared at him blankly. "I was trying to perform a joke," he said. "I can show I am not heartless only on this holiday, out of the others."

"Oh. Okay." Since when did Shadow have a sense of humor?

"It is vital you stop Charmy. This holiday could use some excitement."

Cream was taken aback by the slight smile the harsh, emotionless hedgehog was giving her. But she smiled too. "I will try my best."

The black hedgehog gave her a small nod, and turned and stalked off to do whatever Shadows do. Cream looked down at the book in her hands and felt a rush of excitement.

She knew. She _knew. _This had to be it.

The bunny ran over to Espio. "Come on," she said, dragging him over to the front door. Her heart pounding, trying to escape her chest, she opened the door and pulled him outside.

Night was beginning to fall, the last few rays of sunlight just barely shining westward and the sky was painted pink, almost as if it was celebrating Valentine's Day as well, and eastward the sky was already starting to become the bluey-black shade of twilight. She looked around, marveling at the breathtaking beauty. She hoped that Tails and the others would come soon; she knew she should stay down-to-earth and humble, but Cream couldn't help but feel proud of accomplishing what the others couldn't. She was so caught up her thoughts she almost didn't notice Cheese, who had become bored with struggling to no avail and was despondently letting Marine squeeze him.

"Cheese!" Cream yelped, running over to him. "Are you okay?"

"Chao!" he said, slightly muffled from being squished against Marine.

"What?!" said Cream. "Marine got hit by a love arrow and now she's in love with you and Tails and Knuckles and Tikal and Vector have just gone to see if they can find Silver and Amy and Sonic and Blaze to see if they can help you?"

"Chao, chao!"

"Well, you don't have long to wait," Cream said with a smile. "I... _think _I've found out how to sure her. I haven't tried it yet."

"Chao, chaochao?" Cheese asked.

"Heartbreak," Cream said sagely. "If my theory is correct, than being heartbroken should be strong enough to snap them out of it."

"Chao," he said. "Chao chao chao?"

"I suppose that's what you'd have to do, too, to get Marine away from you." Cream looked thoughtful. "But how do you break Marine's heart?"

"Chaochao chao chao chao chao, chao chao chao," he said slyly.

Cream giggled. "Eeeww! Cheese, that's nasty!"

He gave her a devious chao grin. "Chao, chao chao."

She giggled even harder. "That's just plain naughty, you mischievous little chao!"

"Chao, chao chaochao," he said as Marine, who was apparently deaf to their conversation, squeezed him amorously.

"I guess it could work," Cream said. "But I can't let you do that you-know-what!"

"Chao," he assured her. He thought for a second. "Chao chao chao."

"You're right. She doesn't know Chao, so she won't understand you." She closed her eyes in thought and sighed. "I can't think of anything, Cheese."

However, Cheese wasn't listening. He was gazing into the distance, apparently deep in thought. He looked up at Marine, snuggling him, and uttered a flamboyant "Chao!" in the right tone of voice to get her attention.

"Yea, Cheese? Wha' is it, mate?" Marine said, looking down at him. Not being literate in chao, she had merely thought it was a simple cry to get her attention, but Cream, who had learned by heart the highly efficient tongue spoken by the chao, understood what he meant at once, and gave him a big grin.

"Chao chao chao chao chao," Cheese said.

"Ooh, yes Cheese, I think it'd be important for her to know about that too," said Cream, giving him a small wink.

"Know 'bout what?! Know 'bout what?!" Marine asked excitedly, looking from the rabbit to the chao, to the rabbit, and then to the chao, and then to the rabbit, and you get the point.

"Know about..." Cream paused for dramatic effect, "...Chao Allergy Syndrome."

"Chao... Allergy... Syndrome?" Marine repeated, looking a little worried.

Cream nodded; looking so serious it almost made the chao burst out laughing. "Yes. Chao Allergy Syndrome. It's caused by... um... toxins, in chao fur. It produces a, um, serious allergic reaction in most people that can lead to poisoning. The symptoms include... ah... oddity, obsession of boats and sailing, being annoying, and talking in an Australian accent."

Marine's worry turned to full-fledged panic. "Wh-what?! O, blimey.... Wha' does it do, mate?"

"Well," said Cream, "in mild cases the effects can include rashes, swelling of the tongue, fur loss, temporary blindness and deafness, abnormal speech functions, and limb loss. However, in more severe cases, poisoning ensues, which can eventually lead to... insanity. Of course, rabbits are immune to this, but most at risk are... _raccoons."_

"Raccoons?! Ahh! Holy Dooley! I'm a raccoon!" She quickly released Cheese who gratefully stretched his stiff wings and fluttered into the air. Marine started to tear up. "Crikey! I-I really do like ya, Cheese, b-but... we can't be togetha if you're gonna make me go insane, mate! This is heartbreaking!"

Cream and Cheese shared a look. "Chao chao chao?" Cheese asked.

"What feels heartbreaking?" Cream translated.

"Ya know, how... Cheese...." Marine trailed off. "Tha's odd, mate. I can't.... I don't...."

"Can't what?" Cream asked excitedly.

"I... can't remember...." She shook her head dizzily. "Blimey, tha's crook. Everythin' from the past few hours is just a blur, mate."

Cream had to restrain her excitement from jumping up and down. "So you don't love Cheese?"

"Love Cheese? Crikey! Well, 'e's a cute fella, awright, but I don' love 'im, mate." Marine got up from where she was sitting on the ground and dusted herself off. "Kay, mate, the last thing I rememba is pom-poms, so tha's where I'm goin', mate." She headed off.

"Did you hear that Cheese?!" Cream squealed. "It worked! Now we just have to wait for everyone else to get here!"

"Chao chao, chao chao!" Cheese said, flying loops in happiness.

"Tikal!"

They both turned to see Espio, who was waiting patiently - as Cream had told him - jumping off the porch and darting off to meet the group of fighters, who – so conveniently it was scary – were arriving at this moment.

"Cream! Are you okay?" yelled Tails, running to meet the rabbit.

"Tails, I'm fine!" she said, beaming. "Tails, listen! I know how to cure Mister Sonic and Ms. Rouge and everyone else! I already helped Marine!"

"Say what?!" Knuckles yelled, running to meet Cream as well. "You do?! How- what happened?! Where did- what do we have to do?!"

"Mister Knuckles, calm down!" Cream said, and with good reason too, since Knuckles looked as excited as if he had drank a dozen sugary sodas at three in the morning. "You see, it's really simple! All we have to do is-"

"CHARMY!!!" Vector yelled at the small bee, unnoticed by everyone but the croc who knew him best, yet though it startled everyone, it was not enough to prevent the small arrow, harmless yet so deadly, from stopping in its fatal path toward the young rabbit.

"Vector!!!" yelled Charmy.

"Charmy!!!" yelled Knuckles.

"Cream!!!" yelled Tails.

"Tikal!!!" yelled Espio.

"Espio!!!" yelled Amy.

"Amy!!!" yelled Tikal.

"Blaze!!!" yelled Sonic.

"Chao!!!" yelled Cheese.

"Vector Charmy Knuckles Tails Tikal Espio Blaze Sonic Cheese!" yelled Silver.

Awkward silence and general staring from everyone present.

"No one yelled my name," Silver huffed.

"Darn you, Silver!" said Vector. "While you were huffing about no one yelling your name, Charmy got away!"

It was true. That dang bee was no where to be seen.

Oh, and Cream was in love with Knuckles, too.

Tails gasped. "Oh no! Knuckles how could you! Now Cream is in love with you!!"

"How is this my fault!?" yelled Knuckles, who by the way had Cream clinging happily to his leg.

"Now we'll never find out how to cure Son- I mean everyone!" yelled Amy.

"I know!" yelled Tikal. "Cheese!"

"We don't have time for any dairy treats!" yelled Knuckles.

Everyone facepalmed and decided to just ignore him.

"Okay, Cheese! Do you know how to cure everyone?" said Tikal.

"Chao! Chao chaochaochao chao chaochaochao chao!" he said, extremely fast, because he was freaked out. You'd be freaked out too if your owner/best friend fell in love with someone ten years older than her, when she's only six.

"What?" Tikal asked, puzzled. "The... brick cow ladybug hopped to a battery bubble with-"

Cheese looked frustrated. "No!" he squeaked angrily. No one seemed to notice he had spoken his first word in English. "Chaochaochaochaochaochao-"

"I can't understand you, Cheese!" yelled Tikal.

"We need to find Charmy!" yelled Knuckles.

"No, we need to find out how to cure everyone!" yelled Amy.

"We need to stop yelling and calm down," said Tikal. "Okay, first off, we need to get Charmy. If he was over here than he probably heard how to cure everyone, so if we can get him, we can score twice."

Knuckles grinned and cracked his spiky namesakes. "We prevent the bee from causing any more casualties and we find out how to help everyone who's already hit. Kill two chao with one stone."

"Chao!"

"Speaking figuratively, of course," he added quickly.

"Charmy wouldn't have gone that far away," spoke up Vector. "He'd be hanging around here hoping to get another hit, so if we scour we should find him. However, if we do find him it's likely he won't tell us how to cure them. It's even probable he's known all this time, yet hasn't told us. We'll need a method of persuasion in order to get any info from him. I should know," he added darkly. "I've worked with him."

Silver crossed his arms. "A 'method of persuasion'?"

"Yes. We'll need weapons, of course."

"We can't use weapons on Charmy!" yelped Tikal. "That's horrible!"

"We won't actually _use _the weapons," Vector said hurriedly, "we'll just use them to threaten." _I hope_, he thought silently.

"There's some stuff in my house we could use," said Amy.

Tails raised an eyebrow. "You keep _weapons _in your _house?"_

Amy chuckled. "Not weapons. Insect repellent."

Knuckles bared his fangs in an echidna smile. "That just be might be insane enough to work."

**AN: Yup, I put this up in time. Hopefully Chapter 5 can be up soon, since I'm not finished typing it. This isn't my favorite chapter, though of course I like it, since I wrote it of course :) One of the things that annoyed me slightly is that I feel Shadow was OOC in this chapter. My sister assures me he's not, but I'd like to know your opinions of that matter in your reviews. So go do it now, please.**


	5. Part Five

**Hey everyone. Nope, I'm not dead! =D And, as promised, Chapter 5. Nice long one!**

**Be patient for Chapter 6... especially 'cause of where this leaves off.... heehee....**

**Hope y'all had a nice Easter. I did. **

**Wow, Valentine's Day story at Easter! This is a crazy world XD**

Love Struck

_Chapter 5_

"Can I say, once again, that this is _completely insane?" _asked Knuckles.

"No," advised Silver.

Vector glared at both of them. "Shut up you two!!! I'm trying to think!"

"We should give you an award," said Knuckles, keeping a straight face.

"Yep. I _never _would've expected you to say that, Vector," Silver added.

"SHUT UP!!!"

Vector, Knuckles, and Silver were posted at the entrance to Amy's house, as precautionary guards. The girls were inside gathering as much bug spray as possible and Tails was keeping watch (rather reluctantly) over the lovesick victims, as it was a very important, very dangerous job that no one else would do. Really.

Silver remained silent for a moment, and then said, "You know, this isn't exactly how I wanted to spend this holiday. I mean, okay, when you're as busy a guy as me you only get so much time to yourself, you know? So when I bothered to come all the way to your time just to see you guys, I was hoping I wasn't signing up for another life or death mission to try and save my skin and accomplish some random goal at the same time. All I wanted to do was kick back, relax, and maybe spend some time with-"

"If you don't _shut up, _Silver, your _last_ free time is going to be spent begging for mercy," said Vector.

"Fine, pushy people," grumbled Silver.

Silence.

Silver gave a deep sigh just to break the silence. You know, a big, long, incessant sigh that always annoys everyone around.

Several seconds later he did it again. For the same reason as before.

And then again.

"KNOCK IT OFF!!!" yelled Vector, who was getting seriously ticked.

"What are you thinking so deeply and intently about anyway?!" asked Silver, who disliked sitting still and thus vented his ire by annoying everyone around him.

"Charmy's not gonna come," growled Vector, more to himself than anyone else. "He's just sitting around opportunistically. He'll only come when he sees a chance to shoot someone."

"You're right." Knuckles sighed. "He won't come with us just sitting around like this. Been there, done that."

Silver had a naïve, hopeful expression. "Then why don't we use someone as bait or something so we can get Charmy to come to us?"

"Silver, that's the stupidest-" Knuckles started to yell, but Vector interrupted,

"That's brilliant!"

Thus making Knuckles feel very stupid indeed. "Hmph," he said bitterly. "I believe you are forgetting something, though – who would be thick enough to volunteer himself as bait?"

Silver grinned. "I have an idea."

"Well, _that's _the kiss of death," Knuckles replied dryly.

"No, just listen! Okay, obviously none of us are going to volunteer ourselves, so why don't we talk someone else - someone who hasn't been helping us - into doing it?"

"And, may I repeat myself, just _who?"_

"Just follow me."

Silver walked into Amy's house with a slight swagger in his steps, and Vector and Knuckles had no choice but to follow.

"Didn't Amy tell us to stand watch outside her house?" asked Vector, keeping step behind him.

"Yeah, but we'll be right back over there in a sec. It's like we never even left." He waved his hand dismissively. "Over here."

The hedgehog paused beside the couch, where Jet sat completely immersed in his iPod music. "Jet," he said, loud enough to be heard yet nothing more. "I have to talk to you."

The verdant hawk glared at him and grudgingly removed his headphones from his... uh... hawk equivalent of ears. "What do you want?"

Silver quickly thought of something to say. The argent hedgehog, naїve as he was, knew that Jet was weak at two points – excessive self-confidence and personal gain. "Well, you see, Jet, we kinda have this big... problem. But we can't exactly handle it all by ourselves. We need someone who's brave, and strong-willed, and courageous, and who's willing to take risks."

Jet sat up a little straighter. "I'm listening."

"So we were wondering if you could be so kind as to help us."

The hawk crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. "What exactly do I have to do?"

"Um.... You know Charmy, right? Well he's causing some problems for us, you could say. This is going to sound strange, but he has these arrows, and whenever someone's shot with them they fall in love with whoever they're with. Anyway so Charmy's just flying around shooting people with the arrows and basically making a big dilemma."

"So he's sorta like Cupid gone gangster."

"Uh, sure. What you have to do is get him to come to us. He's been rather elusive and it's hard for us to catch up to him. We were thinking that someone... as, um, brave and strong as you could find him."

"Whatever." The green hawk seemed unfazed by the task that so many hadn't succeeded in. "Wait a second. What's in it for me?"

Silver's ears drooped slightly. "The glory of accomplishing what others couldn't?" he offered hopefully.

"Will I get paid?"

"No, sorry."

Jet scoffed. "Well, then, I'm sure you can find-"

"Sonic couldn't do it," Silver said desperately, remembering their rivalry.

"...in that case I'd be glad to help." As good as the prospect of getting paid was, the hawk could think of no better reward than to brag about how he had done something not even that pesky blue hedgehog could do.

Knuckles grinned at Silver. "Huh. Guess your idea actually worked for once, Silver boy. Didn't think he'd fall for it."

"Fall for what?!" Jet said indignantly, though rather thankfully Tails came over at that moment.

"Hey, Knuckles. Aren't you and everyone else supposed to be outside?" Tails asked, Cream and Sonic and all the rest of them reluctantly following beside him. "Amy just told me to tell you that they found plenty of-" Tails immediately faltered at the sight of Jet's portable music player. "Oooh! What's _that?!_ Can I take a look at it?!" He ran over to Jet and pulled it out of his hands. "Look at this, guys!! Where on Mobius did you get this, Jet?"

"No where on Mobius." Jet seemed to have forgotten instantly about what Knuckles said. "Got it on Earth, Tails."

"Oh, wow!" The yellow fox appeared to be bursting with admiration. "Just look at it! The sleek, seamless design.... The rather inefficient backlight.... The LCD screen appears to be rather capable, however if you replace the crystal display with a high-durability weather-resistant touch-sensitive digital membranous glass, and keep the pixel display yet improve it to be able to broadcast brighter and more vibrant colors, than you could probably enable it to transmit a much clearer visual display. As for the audio projections the headphones appear to be capable yet I'm sure I could improve them to be much clearer and more effervescent when it comes to the sound broadcast. It's a very unfamiliar, primitive style, yet it just makes you wonder, doesn't it? We take things a lot better than this for granted! Many aspects of this device are so archaic that most technicians would take one look at it and deem it as inefficient, however there are some facets of its technology that are rather awing indeed and we could learn so much by studying this!"

Apparently Tails was blind to the extremely astonished stares given by everyone in the vicinity. "...What?" said Knuckles.

"I could make it better," Tails explained. "Hey Jet. What do they call this?"

"Um. An iPod, I think."

"Okay! And so what's its purpose?"

Jet looked completely flummoxed. "It's... um... it's supposed to be used for recreation, I guess. You listen to music on it."

"Really? Wow! That's so cool! I bet that I could improve on this and make it so that-"

"Hey Tails? Not that we don't want to hear your tech-talk, but we're kind of busy right now," said Knuckles.

"Oh. Yeah." The fox scratched the back of his head embarrassedly. "Sorry. I just sorta got carried away."

"Yes, you did," said Silver seriously.

"Ah. Well in any case-"

"Vector! Knuckles! What are you doing in here?"

Amy came striding over to them, Tikal following behind her. "I thought I put you outside! What if Charmy's shot like twenty people while you're in here?"

"Silver made us!" whined Knuckles. "I told him it was wrong!"

Silver glared at him. "Tattletale!" he hissed. Then he turned to Amy. "Look, I just thought that we should try and find someone who would... uh... willingly volunteer to help us find Charmy and stand up to him."

"I know. It's stupid, right?" said Knuckles, crossing his arms and leering at Silver.

"No," said Amy. "That's brilliant!"

Knuckles growled angrily. He felt like smashing Silver through the nearest car door, but naturally couldn't – not because he physically couldn't, of course he _could_ – but because there were more important things going on.

"We'll have to get on it right away," said Amy. "I have the perfect idea. Okay. Are you all ready?"

"Wait a second!" said Jet. "What am I going to be doing anyway?"

Amy smiled smugly. "Oh, you'll find out. Just stand by for a moment."

* * *

"Are you kidding me?!" Jet nearly yelled at Amy as she shoved him out her door.

"Nope. Now get out there and be the... um... brave, valiant hawk you are!"

Jet hissed angrily, an eerie, frightening sound. "You didn't tell me I have to do... _this. _I can refuse if I want to!"

Amy looked at him pleadingly. "Come on Jet! Pleeaase? If all goes as planned than nothing should really happen anyway!"

The green hawk glared at her and then sighed. "Fine. But if anything goes wrong, I'm warning you-"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm _so_ terrified of you. Now get out there!"

As tactics go, Amy's was fairly simple. Jet – and the rest of the Babylon Rogues – would be used as "bait", as Charmy would most likely be unable to resist the prospect of such vulnerable prey. He would post himself somewhere nearby to get a clear shot of them, and Knuckles, Tails, and Vector would be in charge of locating him, hopefully before he got the opportunity to fire any arrows. When located, the bee would have to be stealthily captured, and then Amy and Silver (much to Knuckles and Vector's dismay) would be given the job of threatening the sacred information of how to cure the lovesick victims out of him. There would be many risks taken, and so much could go wrong, but it was their only chance, and thus _had _to work.

Jet gave Amy one last glare, and traipsed out into the small yard in front of Amy's house, Wave and Storm following loyally behind him. Wave, being the only female, naturally had slight misgivings about the whole operation, but in the end grudgingly gave in to Amy. Storm, on the other hand, was all too eager to do whatever Jet said. Of course, it was likely he didn't understand what was going on, so that's that.

"Knuckles, Vector, Tails! Go, go, go!" Amy whispered to them. They nodded and slunk to the side, concealing themselves in the shrubbery.

"Tails, do you see him?" whispered Knuckles.

The fox quickly pulled out the small binoculars Amy had lent him and peered around the edges of the yard. "No, I don't! He has to be close by, though! Where could he be?"

Vector looked at each of them in turn. "No. That's not where he'd be. You saw what he was like, right? He wouldn't be out in the open; he was taught concealment by the best of the best, AKA Espio. Plus, he has those wings, which means he could... be..."

"...on the roof!" Tails finished, excitement in his clear blue eyes.

"He has to be!" Knuckles said, never considering for a moment he was wrong. "Tails, you know what this means, don't you? You're the only one who can get up there."

"Heh, you don't even have to worry, Knuckles," the fox said, grinning. "I'm on it." In one fluid motion, his twin tails whipped at the air like a helicopter's blades, however with the exception of being notably quieter and furrier. He rose into the air, nearly silent, and was on the roof of Amy's house in a flash. Their hypothesis was right; hovering near the edge of the roof, arrow cocked and ready, was Charmy Bee.

Tails grinned triumphantly to himself. Okay, he'd have to move fast, before Charmy had a chance to fire his arrow. What to do? How to stop him?"

The answer rose easily to his head – frighten him. Startle him enough to forget all about shooting anyone for the moment. Charmy's panic would give them enough time to capture him... with a bit of luck. But how? How to scare him enough to be that easy to capture?

Tails' hand reached instinctively into his pocket; there might be something of use in there.... He felt the... what did Jet call it? iPod? Anyway, Tails pulled out the small music player. He must have forgotten to give it back to Jet during the whole commotion of trying to convince him to be their bait.

As he stared at the smooth, seamless white machine, a sly thought crossed his mind. Hmm... that could _definitely _work.... And no doubt be rather entertaining. But he'd have to act fast, before Charmy could....

Tails turned up the iPod's volume as much as possible. Oh yes. This would be very, very fun.

He crept over to Charmy, his heart hammering so loud he was relieved that the bee couldn't hear it. Closer... closer....

The fox took out the headphones and – holding his breath – gently, gently slipped them over the bee's antennas. Thankfully, oh so thankfully, the bee was too attentive to the scene unfolding below to even notice Tails.

Grinning to himself, Tails pressed the PLAY button.

The effect was instantaneous.

"AAAAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!" Charmy screamed. To say he was frightened would be much too small a word. He was in such utter panic you'd have to invent a new word to describe how the young bee felt. A word I will call... Horrifrightenedpanic-filledterrordread. Because, quite simply, that was exactly his thoughts – a jumbled blur.

However, his actions weren't exactly what Tails was counting on. As soon as he saw a glimpse of Tails, Charmy took to the skies in fright, and left Tails fruitlessly snatching at thin air.

"He's getting away!!! What do I do?!" Tails yelled down to Knuckles.

"FLY AFTER HIM, YOU MORON!!!!" Knuckles roared back at him.

"Uh- yeah! Right!" Tails said, rotating his fuzzy appendages and taking flight, though I'm sorry to say he was a little late, and Charmy was already a good way away from him, having gotten relatively skilled at speed flying and driven by extreme panic to speeds unknowns to bees. In fact, he might've gotten away again if it wasn't for a little luck, and a particularly heroic chao.

"Chao! Chaochaochaochaochaochao!" Cheese yelled, ferociously assaulting the bee and forcing him back to the ground.

"Acckk!! Get this stupid chao OFF OF ME!!!" yelled Charmy, changing direction and flying frantically back to the ground, desperately trying to escape the vicious yet valiant actions of Cheese.

"Yeeaah!" Knuckles yelled. "Good going, Cheese!"

"Chao," he said modestly.

"I got him!" Silver announced, psychokinetically dragging a struggling Charmy over to Knuckles and Vector.

Vector stepped one foot on Charmy, pinning him down none too gently. "Alright, _Charmy," _Vector snarled, "you better tell us how to cure everyone _now, _or else!"

"Or else what?" Charmy had the gall to ask.

"Or else Amy here is gonna get fierce with her bug spray!"

It was a rather meager insult that usually would've caused the person being threatened to roll their eyes, but under the circumstances here it was much more threatening.

"I-I'm not s-scared of you, A-Amy," said Charmy, trembling.

"Yes you are. You're trembling," Silver pointed out.

Charmy gave him an angry glare, and then said, "I don't know what you're talking about. I already told Blaze I don't know how to cure the shot people and I don't know now. You're wasting your time."

"Stop lying," Vector said, pressing down harder with his boot. It pained him to hurt his co-worker like this, but Charmy.... The mischievous fellow is always up to schemes like this, and he needed to be shown who the boss is. Besides, hadn't Vector once told him awhile back that the croc's word was law and if he went against it he'd end up with his face in the dirt? Or something along those lines.

"I'm telling the truth!" Charmy meekly insisted.

Vector looked over to the pink hedgehog standing beside him and nodded. "Go nuts, Pinky."

Amy grinned manically and pulled out the bug spray. Tikal was quite firm in telling her that she shouldn't – couldn't - use her hammer to get the information out of Charmy, and using this interesting liquid that was for some reason extremely repugnant to insects was the next best thing.

"Ahh!!" Charmy shouted as soon as he saw the packaging. He remembered the horrible, horrible days he spent fleeing from gardens sprayed with the vile, repulsive-smelling liquid, the irritating stinging and burning; the evil insect repellant that's any well-mannered bee's worst bugbear. "Okay! Okay! I'll tell you everything I know! It's heartbreak! I heard the bunny talking about it to the chao!"

"What do you mean, 'heartbreak'?" said Amy, hesitating, finger resting on the spray-type thing.

"I- I just heard Cream talking about it! She said she... thought she found out how to cure the raccoon, and then they did!" He sighed to himself. "Just my luck that the rabbit would find out the cure when I was this far into my game. Hmph. That silly bunny figured out what none of you could. If it wasn't for her-"

"Yeah, we don't care," said Tails. "Just tell us how they did it."

"Hmph. The chao broke Marine's heart. It was relatively simple."

Amy looked questioningly at Tails, who shrugged. " That's... it?" she asked the bee, surprised.

He glared at her. "Did you expect fanfare and confetti?"

"Don't you be smart with her!" growled Knuckles. "You better remember your life rests on our mercy, Charmy!"

"Don't overdue it," said Vector.

Charmy looked relieved. "Thanks, Vect-"

"No, it's just that it's _my _job to overdue it," the crocodile grinned. "Ah well. We know how to cure them, more or less."

Amy grinned, flooded with fresh excitement. "Heartbreak. I can't believe I didn't figure it out before this!" She paused and glanced at the mischievous bee, the one who had caused all this trouble, the one who caused her dear Sonikku to fall for someone else....

"Alright. So we know how to cure everyone from what Cream did," said Silver. "But that doesn't tell us how _we're_ going to do it. Or what we're going to do with the bee now that he's served his purpose."

"Can't we threaten him some more?" Amy asked hopefully.

"Why are you all so intent on hurting me?!" yelled Charmy.

"Because you hurt us," said Tails quietly.

There was silence from the bee, and when he said no reply, Tails said, "We'll have to think of another type of plan, one to use for the victims this time. We need to find out how to... break their hearts." It was only obvious the young fox was scared to pieces about how on Mobius he'd break Rouge's heart.

"You should go first, Tails!" said Knuckles brightly. "I'm sure that would be entertaining!"

"Ah... I'll pass. How 'bout you, Silver?"

After approximately four minutes wasted on trivial discussion and arguing, our heroes were forced to conclude that no one was anxious to break their lover's heart first.

"Okay, how about this?" said Amy. "We go in order of who got shot. But 'cause Blaze got shot too, it means Silver has to go first, and then Tails, and so on and so on."

"What?!" Silver cried in horror. "I have to go first?! Blaze's gonna KILL me!!" He looked somewhere around how scared Charmy was earlier.

"Yeah, well you should've thought about that before you let her fall in love with you!" Knuckles chided.

"How is it my fault?!"

"IT JUST IS!!"

"That's not a very good reason!"

"Shut up!" yelled Vector. "You're going first, Silver, and it's _your _problem how you're gonna do it. Amy, go get Blaze. Tikal, please watch over the rest of them, since you're the only one I can trust."

"With _pleasure," _Amy said, grinning maliciously at Silver. She handed over the bug spray to Tails. "If Charmy tries anything, go nuts with this."

"Please don't, Tails," said Tikal, following Amy.

"Hey, wait a minute!" spoke up Jet. "What am I supposed to do?"

"Stay out of our way," said Knuckles.

"That's all you needed my for?!" Jet said angrily. "As _bait?!"_

Knuckles sighed. "Pretty much."

Jet looked very, very irritated. "You do realize that if you had just ASKED us to help you we would?! We wouldn't just refuse simply 'cause you needed our help! And we would've been a GIANT help to you guys! I'm sure we could've captured Charmy a lot sooner than you guys!"

Knuckles sighed again. "It didn't occur to us that you'd help. We were all in a rather frantic mood, and-"

"I'm baaaack!" announced Amy, leading a battered and dreamy Blaze over to the throng of Mobians. "She was hard to catch, but I did it!"

No one even wanted to _know _what she meant by that.

"Where's Silver?" asked Blaze distantly. "You said he'd be here?"

"Yup! He is! And he has something real important to say to you!"

"_Very _important," added Knuckles spitefully.

Of course, it wasn't very kind of them to take so much joy into humiliating Silver, but you must realize they were all anxious and worried. When you're anxious and worried, you try to feel less anxious and worried by trying to convince the people around you you're _not _anxious and worried but when they're anxious and worried as well, it can turn into one big ball of spite.

Silver stared uncomfortably at the lavender cat, his mind racing and heart thumping. Oh, man.

Oh, _man...._


	6. Part Six

_A/N: Sorry for the... 2 year delay. I just happened to be looking at this recently and realized it was pretty decent for something written when I was twelve, so I'll be finishing it, hopefully before the fourteenth. After it's (finally!) done, I'll bask around in happiness for a while, and maybe eventually get around to fixing it up and bringing it up to par with my current standards._

_In any case, hey, anyone's who's been waiting this long, thanks for sticking with me. Hope you enjoy._

* * *

Love Struck

_Part 6_

Silver's heart beat frantically in his furry chest like a trapped hummingbird. He had no idea what on Mobius he could do to break Blaze's heart – and even if he did, the prospect of actually _doing _it was so very, very intimidating. He cringed inwardly at the fleeting, painful thought. All the years of being associates with the volatile purple cat had taught him the first rule when dealing with her: never, ever, _ever, _under any circumstances, purposely antagonize her.

The hedgehog recalled the two years previously at Christmastime when Sonic had talked him into baiting Blaze with a catnip mouse as a joke. She had responded as you might expect - it was quite the embarrassing situation for Silver, to have all his fur from the waist down completely burned away. And Sonic never let him live it down.

Blaze was watching him curiously, her head cocked slightly to the side. Her inquisitive golden gaze made Silver almost faint with nerves. If he refused to do this, everyone would know how much of a coward he is. But if he broke her heart, he'd be a goner for sure.

Okay. Okay. _What's the worst that could happen anyway? _Silver thought to himself.

The worst that could happen? He'd get roasted like a turkey. No big deal.

Yeah, right.

Silver heard Knuckles say something to Tails behind him. "He's not gonna do it! He's gonna chicken out."

A small wave of new determination tingled through Silver's veins. No one, no one at all would EVER be allowed to think of him as Silver the Chicken! Even though a lot of people already thought of him as Silver the Cockatoo, but that was a different matter of Bird Nicknames.

Just get it over with! Get it over with, and brace yourself for the pain! Maybe it wouldn't be _that_ bad.

He took a shaky breath to calm himself. "B-Blaze?" he stuttered. The hedgehog subconsciously realized he was trembling like a... well, like a frightened hedgehog.

She looked up at him, bottled innocence shining in her eyes. "Yes, Silver?"

_Just get it over with!_ he screamed inside his head, and it took all his effort not to scream it aloud. Even though if he did it might startle Blaze enough to break this trance, he thought that might give Knuckles a month's worth of joyous Silver-Teasing.

"I-I... I just w-wanted to t-tell you that..."

He faltered, his heart doing a tap-dance in his ribcage.

Blaze stepped even closer to him and took his hand in hers. "Tell me what?"

Silver became suddenly aware of the snickering behind him and Knuckles' particularly loud whisper of, "Is he going to break her heart or make out with her?"

Making a mental note to pound Knuckles into Red-Echidna-Pancakes, Silver said, slowly and trying not to sound tremulous, "I wanted to tell you that... I don't... like you... the same way you like me," he finished.

Blaze blinked in surprise, and then gave a small smile. "Oh, I see! You're making a joke. It's funny."

She gently reached out to caress her hand against his face, stroking his spikes lovingly. He closed his eyes, and felt like just getting lost, lost forever in the wonderful feeling of her touch. He didn't want to break her heart; he wanted to wrap his arms around her, to embrace her and never let go.

A deep despair blossomed in Silver's mind as he remembered, as much as he wanted to believe it, this Blaze was not Blaze at all. The real Blaze was hidden by a veil of lovesickness, and he knew that the only way to get her back was to...

He looked in her eyes, eyes driven by a lovesick mind. "No, I'm not joking. I don't feel the same way at all. I'm... sorry..."

Her expression changed to a puzzled confusion and then to a shocked sadness as tears welled in her eyes.

Dark crimson flames flickered on her fingers as she punched him in the stomach.

Silver gave an anguished yelp as his legs gave way beneath him and he fell painfully to the ground.

"Okay, maybe I deserved that..." he mumbled.

The befuddled lavender cat blinked her eyes once, twice. She felt like her mind had been clouded by a thick, dense fog that was just starting to fade. It was hard to remember anything at all from the past few hours. The only thing clear in her mind was a bitter rage at the silver hedgehog in front of her. She had no idea how or why, and not knowing only made her angrier. So, since he was already on the ground, she kicked him, very hard, where it would hurt the most. And I do not mean the face.

"Actually, I don't think I deserved _that," _Silver yelped, his voice unnaturally high, and it was not because of helium.

"S-Silver?" Blaze panted, her breathing rather ragged as her head began to clear. "I... I'm sorry, it..."

She appeared to be at a complete loss for words. Thinking hard, she began to recall the past few hours ordeal of trying to stop...

"Charmy," she said. "Where is he? Did we stop him? Are we-"

"Hey, just hold on!" said Knuckles. "Don't worry. I managed to capture him and single-handedly got the information of how to cure the victims!"

Amy crossed her arms. " 'Single-handedly?' "

"More or less."

Blaze closed her eyes, trying to hold on to the fleeting memories of what had been going on. The night was commencing, and a chilling wind rustling through the area helped her concentrate. "Heartbreak," she said. "I think I heard you talking about that. Is that important?"

"Think of it this way," said Tails. "It's about as important as the bat in the human sport baseball."

Knuckles grinned devilishly at him. "Speaking of bats..."

"Ha ha, real funny."

"All I meant was, you might be able to break Rouge's heart by threatening her with a bat. Heh-heh. Looks like you're up next, kiddo," Knuckles said with a grin. "One down, however-many-more-there-are-left to go!"

"Love arrow victims," said Blaze, "that's it, right? You're trying to cure them with... heartbreak?"

"That's it in a nutshell," said Tails. "It's getting late, though." The young fox's tails were fluffed up to keep out the chilling late-evening wind. "We don't have much time left until midnight, when the effect becomes permanent. We've helped you, and Cream already cured Marine. So we have Sonic, Espio, and Cream left."

Knuckles snickered. "You left out Rouge on purpose."

"That is completely true."

"Don't I get a say in this?" squeaked Charmy, who had been tied up by Tikal, since apparently restraining people doesn't go against being a pacifist.

Everyone ignored Charmy, and Tails insisted, "Why doesn't Blaze have to go next? I thought we were going in order of the people who got shot, so she would be next!"

"Blaze doesn't have to go next because she just got cured," Amy explained patiently, "and she's probably too tired and creeped out at the moment to break anyone's heart."

Tails glared at her. "That's not fair! Blaze is NOT too tired to break Sonic's heart!"

"Ouch!" Blaze said. "A sudden, shooting pain in my back! I must be too tired to break Sonic's heart!"

"You can be a real heck of a jerk sometimes," Tails huffed angrily.

While everyone was laughing Tikal led over a random batch of assorted lovesick victims. "I decided to bring over everyone now to save time. Oh, except I couldn't find Rouge, Tails. I'm not sure if that's supposed to be ominous or joyous."

"...oh, dear." Tails gulped.

"I'll... take that as ominous, then," said Tikal.

The fox shivered. Everything had seemed to become darker all of a sudden, and it seemed to have gotten considerably colder out. Or maybe it was just his active imagination playing tricks on him? How else could the entire world seem to become more menacing? Maybe the fact that the moon was nothing more that the slightest sliver of light tonight. Or maybe the fact that it had been quite a cold winter this year and the nighttime was just highlighting that. Or maybe it was because a dark shadow was diving soundlessly toward him through the dark.

Tails had no time at all to register this new bit of information before he was tackled to the ground by a nearly invisible force. His first bewildered thought was that somehow Charmy had managed to shoot him with a love arrow and this must be what it felt like. A split second later, as he began to regain his senses, he realized in terror what was going on.

"R-R-Rouge..." Tails whimpered.

The bat pressed him against the ground in a nearly immobile, impossible-to-get-out-of position.

"Tails," she purred, "I believe I promised I'd come back for you..."

As terrified as he was, Tails couldn't help but feel something nagging in the back of his head. Just something... wrong. He knew that to state it out loud would be suicide. But Tails had always been one to have everything righted. He wasn't a perfectionist, per se, it's just that when he saw something wrong, he liked to correct it.

"A-actually," Tails stuttered, "you didn't."

Even in the near dark, Tails could almost feel Rouge's glare.

"Didn't what?" she said icily.

_Don't say anything! _Tails pleaded to himself. _Just say it's nothing, nothing at all!_

He couldn't stop himself.

"I-I... Y-you see," he said, "you d-didn't p-promise anyth-thing at all. Earlier today."

Even as he said it, Tails knew he was good as dead.

He couldn't help but envy Silver. All he had to deal with was a very touchy, very irascible cat. Big deal. Rouge was much, much worse then Blaze. More touchy. More irascible. And - he couldn't help but feel - much, much more dangerous with her feminine wiles.

And Tails didn't even have Cream to get him out of this mess.

"Tails?" Rouge said in an eerily calm tone of voice.

"...Y-yes?" Tails whimpered weakly.

"You're going to regret saying that."

The fox didn't respond, as he suddenly realized his vocal cords weren't functioning correctly.

"I'm going to put in a state of emotional and physical shock so bad you'll take years to recover... if it doesn't finish you off now."

_Love is too complicated, _Tails thought bitterly. Fixing a car? Easy. Dismantling a train's engine? Piece of cake. Completely rewiring a plane's internal harddrive? A nice challenge. Understanding love?

Tails decided that if he survived he'd have to stay single for the rest of his life.

By the sidelines, everyone else was too amazed to do anything but stand. Well, amazement was only _part _of the reason. They all got a certain satisfaction from knowing that (at least for the moment) it was _Tails' _moment of complete humiliation, and not theirs. Sure, in a couple of minutes it would be their turn to be humiliated in front of everyone else, but right now? It was Tails' Torture.

Silver, being the helpful friend he is (Adding to that fact, that he'd also gone through this) stepped forward to defend Tails, but Knuckles stuck his arm out.

"No... Don't," the echidna said, completely transfixed.

Tails, at the moment, would have been happy to accept help from anyone, from the argent hedgehog to the red echidna, or even his nemesis Dr. Eggman, as long as it got him out of this situation.

"P-please, Rouge!" stuttered Tails. "I-I didn't mean anything from it, I just-"

"Don't try to make up some excuse, Tails!" Rouge's tone was harsh and cut off the fox instantly. "You really deemed it prudent enough to correct _me? _And at _this _particular moment?"

Once again Tails spoke without thinking it through first. "Yes."

The second he said that, Tails covered his mouth. He was really tempted to say a "bad word" he learned from Knuckles, but luckily this time he thought it out before he said anything.

"Wow, you've reeaally dug yourself into a deep hole, dude," said Vector.

Tails most certainly agreed. _Very deep, _he thought.

To say Rouge was angered would be the understatement of the year. The bat had a tendency to be as narcissistic as they come - and being corrected by an ignorant little fox; more importantly, the ignorant little fox who was the subject of her magically-induced-infatuation, was a matter of utmost pride and dignity. So what if she _hadn't _actually said that earlier? She was just trying to make a point, and if this annoying, irritating, exasperating excuse for a canine was going to just ruin the whole effect like that...

_Ah, the things we do for love, _thought Rouge, stroking the fox's fuzzy chest.

Adrenaline was coursing through Tails' veins; instinct was telling him fleeing was the best option. But he couldn't run, and if he stayed any longer... he was terrified of what Rouge might do to him.

The thought of what might happen to him gave Tails a new determination. Was he just going to sit there and let all this happen to him? Of course not; he's Miles Prower! He'd done far more dangerous things than fight off this... actually, on second thought, getting on Rouge's bad side was pretty dangerous. But no, it wasn't enough to finish _him _off!

"Stop it, Rouge!" Tails yelled, the tone of his voice surprising everyone, including him. "Snap out of the stupid love arrow's trance! I'm _eight, _you freaking pedo! You know better than to molest an eight-year-old! So get the frick away from me!"

Stunned silence was abound. Silver whispered to Knuckles, "Where on _Mobius _did he learn that kind of language?"

Tails was shaking like a leaf, but he held his defiance and mustered an angered glare toward Rouge.

"Get. _Off."_

Astoundingly, the bat obliged. With a flick of her indigo wings, she was hovering several feet above him.

Tails shakily got to his feet. Only then did he realize just how cold it had gotten. He briefly wondered why he didn't notice before, and then decided not to ponder the fact.

"Thank you," he said, his voice as unwavering as his expression.

A small smile was tugging on her colored lips. "You know, I should be thanking _you."_

No words left to be said, Rouge flew away, silent as a bat.

Tails' amused grin was the only expression that deviated from the utter shock expressed the group.

"...What the hell just happened?" said Knuckles, summarizing everyone's thoughts relatively well.

"One more down," Tails said. His cryptic words answered Knuckles' question in more ways than they had known at the time. He turned around and blinked at everyone's identical expressions.

"Stop standing around like that!" Tails said. He pointed to the sky, where the moon hovered above the horizon. Day was nearly over. "Don't you guys see? Every minute is one minute closer to midnight!"

"Tails is right!" Amy said, reminded with a horrible heartthrob of her dear Sonic's fate. She turned to face the others. "We've wasted enough time as is. No more complaining! We _need _to cure everyone before midnight!"

"I agree," Blaze said.

"As do I," Silver said with a nod.

"I do too," said Tikal. She gave Knuckles a meaningful look.

"I-I guess I do too," he stuttered. Somehow, this whole operation hadn't seemed real to him until now.

Vector gave Charmy a small look, and said, "I'll help in whatever way I can."

"Whoa, wait a second!" came Jet's harsh tone of voice. "You guys are overreacting. It's just a stupid-"

Amy launched herself toward Jet and none too gently grabbed the front of his shirt. With a yelp, the hawk found himself face-to-face with a furious fangirl.

"Overreacting?" she shouted, overreacting to his innocent statement. _"Overreacting? _Have you _seen _how everyone's acting? They have no mind or conscience, just blind love!"

Jet managed to scoff. "I seriously doubt-"

"You just don't get it, do you? They! Have! No! Free! Will!" Giving Jet a disgusted look, she pushed him away from her. "You just came here for the free food, didn't you? Mighty 'Jet the Hawk' doesn't care about anyone but himself. So what if everyone else is in trouble, if there's nothing in it to benefit you, then you want nothing to do with it!"

"Exactly," the bird said with a sneer. "Storm, Wave, let's beat it."

He started to walk away, but halted when he noticed the two made no motion to follow him.

"Did you two buffoons hear me? We're leaving!"

Wave glanced at Storm and nodded. The albatross looked slightly confused, but stated gruffly, "We ain't comin' boss."

"Fine, then!" he said, his nasally voice raising to a screech. "Do I really need _you two _with me all the time?"

"Yes," Wave said curtly. "You'd be lost without us… _boss."_

Pausing long enough to snarl at the two of them, the bird turned and stalked away.

There was a silence as everyone watched him, until he disappeared in the distance.

"Do you really think…" Tails started to ask, but he fell silent.

"He'll come back," Wave said, and everyone was surprised by her confidence. "He's just temperamental. He's bound to come to senses. Eventually." The swallow looked at Storm again, as if silently agreeing on something, and they both headed off in the opposite direction.

"H-hey!" Tails said, running after them and grabbing onto Wave's arm. "You can't... you can't just _leave!"_

She stared at him. "And why not?"

"I... well, you could help us. We could use your intelligence and Storm's strength, should it come down to that. We've only got a few hours left until midnight, and everyone's useful in this crisis, right?"

Wave gave him a grim smile. "You wouldn't want our help."

"Yes, we would!" Tails glared at everyone else. "Right?"

Knuckles sighed. "In all honesty, at this point more people are just more targets for that bee to continue his little game with. But, I suppose you were right that the birds could come in handy."

"We prefer the term 'avians', if you don't mind," said Storm.

"Avians, then," Knuckles said angrily, rubbing his temples. "God, you guys are giving me a migraine. Well, then, at least we're moving along smoothly. Tikal, it looks like you're up."

Tikal smiled warmly at Espio, who was standing beside her protectively and suspiciously looking at Knuckles.

"This other echidna," he said slowly. "What is your relation to him?"

"We-ll," Tikal started, "a lot of people suspect we're related, although there's no definite evidence of that, and hey, we were born a few hundred years apart, so it's not like it matter, yes? But we are both echidnas, and he is pretty hot, but seeing as I'm stuck inside this giant emerald and I get two days of vacation every decade, there's a not a lot of room for relationship building."

Espio stared at Tikal. "Giant... emerald?"

"Yeah, I know. It really, um, what do they say these days? Blues?"

"Close enough," Silver said with a snicker.

"Um, well," Tikal continued, "I certainly wish I had more time off. But the pay is nice and it's a lot roomier in there than you'd think! Also, I have Chaos in there to keep me company!" She noticed the forlorn expression on Espio's face and hastily added, "Not that you're a bad guy and all. In fact, you're much nicer than a lot of guys these days. So reserved and polite. But it's hard to take others with me into the Master Emerald. There's the whole absorption into light, and then the assimilation..." She took the chameleon's hands and gave him a sad smile. "Sorry."

Espio looked depressed. "I... understand."

Vector laughed and threw his arm around Espio. "Too bad for you, huh? We could've made off with that emerald a lot easier if you were cozyin' up with the girl in charge of it. Oh, and Knuckles, but he's nothin' to worry about. I mean, he prob'ly doesn't even know where that thing is right now!"

"I do too!" Knuckles shouted angrily. "It's on Angel Island, right where it should be!"

"With no one guarding it?" Vector grinned.

Knuckles only glared.


End file.
